I learned this song travelling through Yellowstone on a school bus filled with Girl Scouts.
I’ve been singing it to groups for decades at this point. When my nieces were little they requested it at bedtime.
Do you ever wonder who, indeed, were the witches?
And what happened to them? Why do our well-meaning friends and family worry that we might be one?
Because history, my friends, is a tricky bitch.
While this song is light and fun, and Halloween is light and fun, and these days being a witch can be light and fun (and oh-so cool), there’s some very real and serious history your need to know.
And I tell you this not to rain on your Halloween parade, but to soothe you.
That heartbreak you feel? That fear of not wanting people to think you’re “weird” or “witchy”? That deep curiosity you won’t listen to? Those women’s circles you don’t want anyone to know you attend?
You’re not crazy.
You’re not chicken.
You’re not shameful.
You are, instead, responding to a very real survival mechanism put in place by centuries of conditioning.
You are protecting yourself, your daughters, your friends from being “caught”.
It goes deep.
It’s real.
So, who were the witches? We were.
We are.
To me, being a witch means you live with nature rather than in spite of it.
You befriend it, build intimacy with it.
So, when you find yourself pausing to watch a shower of autumn leaves, when you hear a melody in the crackle of your evening fire, when you see a dance in the steam of your tea, pause.
Take a deep breath.
Give thanks for your freedom to post on Instagram about being a witch.
Send peace and sweetness through the ethers, beyond the veils, backward and forward through time, to those who didn’t.
love & witches,
kv
